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An Ocean Themed Birthday Party

Where I don’t normally post things that are out of the style of my shop, I had so much fun creating this party for my little man that I just had to share with you. My littlest one recently turned 7 and wanted to have a party this year. Normally he kinda gets jipped with the parties with having his birthday fall on Memorial weekend. I completely know how that feels with my birthday being just 4 days after Christmas. He was all excited about the party and chose to have it at Loggerhead Marine Life Center in Juno Beach, Fl. It’s a wonderful local center that is dedicated to helping our sea turtles and beaches. Since he normally doesn’t have a party we decided to decorate a bit extra this year, relax and have lots of fun.

There were so many things that I was able to create using things that I already had and pieces that I was able to repurpose. The room already had a beautiful color on the walls with lots of light into the room. My only improvise was we were not allowed to have balloons of any kind, no confetti, and couldn’t hang anything from the ceiling. We had less than 2 hours to decorate so were not able to get everything up like planned but was happy all the same. Those are my two girls in the background taking a quick break from decorating.

I pretty much kept the color palette in blues and greens to keep with the theme. It was bright and fun. Almost everything I created was from simple things I had around and from our local dollar stores.

My daughter quickly took photos while we were decorating and unfortunately did not get any when we were done, but happy that we at least got the ones we did. These didn’t come out as nicely as I had wanted but that’s ok, we had such a blast. I created two of these centerpieces using rectangle blue vinyl bins. The green seaweed was made from green hula skirts from our local Dollar Tree along with the ping pong balls we scattered for turtle eggs. I created the jelly fish from blue plastic bowl covers, placed them on painted dowel rods, added irridesent tissue paper and curling ribbon. Added a few print outs of sea turtles and filled the bins with matching tissue paper. Each table was topped with table runners I made from a blue vinyl shower curtain also found at a dollar store.

Not the clearest picture, but you get the idea.

The pictures don’t do them justice. They were super cute and under $5.00 for each! Can’t beat that!

These fun little “Octopops” were inspired from a pin on Pinterest. So simple and easy and Landon had so much fun helping create these. These are simply tootsie pops covered in tissue paper squares. We added matching pipe cleaner legs and little googly eyes, curled green pipe cleaners for sea weed and added them to a piece of cardboard. These were dual purpose, a cute part of the decor and one of the favors that we gave out.

These shark bait cups were filled with sea green sour gummy ribbon or as the kids said, sea weed for the sharks. I think boys love anything that has a shark on it. The gummy ribbons weigh less so aren’t as expensive when you have to pay for candy by the pound.

This clown fish and anenome centerpiece was made entirely from things found at the Dollar Stores. The base is a duster. As soon as I had seen it I knew what I was going to create with it. I added a few bath scrubbies and those fun little rubber toys that my little one loves to play with. I printed out little clown fish and added them to wood skewers that I painted white. A centerpiece created for under $8.00 and can be taken apart and all the pieces put to good use.

This one was made the same way but topped on a piece of pool noodle that I cut open and added a bit of the green hula skirt to the back.

These sea weed sculptures were a hit with my little one! We finally used up some of those toilet tissue rolls that we had been saving. Simply painted them green and topped them with green and blue painted coffee filters. Filled them with left over basket fill and we had a bunch of little sculptures we created in different heights.

We found out last minute that we weren’t able to hang anything from the ceiling so had to improvise just a bit. All of these paper lantern jelly fish were to be hung in varying heights, but instead propped them up on painted dowels and placed them in buckets of gravel. Not the same effect but still looked super cute. This was another inspiration I found on Pinterest. We created quite a few of these in aqua and lime green.

I truly wish we were able to get better pictures, but really didn’t have too much time in the room before the party. This fun little piece was one of my favorites from the party and was the only piece that I brought home. I decided to donate all of the decor to the Marine Life Center in hopes it would help them with future events. In case you can’t tell this chandelier was made from green packing peanuts that I had on hand. They already looked fitting for an ocean themed party and knew I had to use them. I strung them on different lengths of thread and hung them from two different sized embroidery hoops to give them an uneven and flowy look. I glued on a few star fish I had on hand and painted the hoops to match. This piece was also to hang as a chandelier but had to prop it from a dowel and place in a container. I am in love with this one and think it would make such a fun addition to an ocean themed wedding or mermaid party.

These coffee filter sea weed strands were another fun and easy craft your kids can create with you. I put down large pieces of cardboard to protect the table top that way he could get messy if he wanted. I gave him a squirt of paint a bowl of water and let him go at it. There really is no wrong way to paint these, either way they come out cool. We added a bit of watered out blue tempora paint in blotches then let them dry hanging over the bottles of paint. Once the blue dried we added the green then let these dry. We simply threaded them onto long strands of thread and added a little drop of glue to hold them in place.

There was an entire wall of french doors so decided to add streamers of crepe paper, irredescnt garland and round paper circle garlands along the whole length of the wall. It made a pretty backdrop with the light shining through.

This was our silly pool noodle sea plant sculpture. I painted a 4 x 4 piece of wood green as the base and glued on left over green paper shred for texture. Drilled holes on an angle for thicker dowel rods that would go about 1/4 of the way up the noodle. Cut enough length of a 12 gauge wire to go the remaining length of the pool noodle, slid it through each noodle and bent it to the shape I wanted. Then slid the noodle over the dowel to hold it in place. I made quick tissue paper flowers with left over paper that I had, placed those in the noodle hole and hot glued on strips of green hula skirt. Added a few sticks of glitter branches from the dollar store and that was that. A fun and funky centerpiece that everyone got a kick out of.

This was the talk and fun of the party. Everyone had a blast posing in our shark booth. Most of this was created from large sheets of cardboard that I found in some local recycle bins. Just drew it all out and painted it up. I did two layers of teeth with poster board, being the shark lover, Landon wanted it as real as I could get it. We went a little step further and added a red table cloth in that back for a better effect.

His turtle cake. Turned out pretty cute. I didn’t make this one, but did make dark chocolate salted caramel cupcakes for the adults.

These wraps were pretty easy and super tasty! See recipe below. We added wavy potato chips along with gold fish crackers and called them “fish and chips”

“Thai Chicken Peanut Wraps”

Spinach Wraps

Whole Roasted Chicken

Matchstick Carrots

Julienned Asian Cucumber

Cilantro

Sushi Rice (cook according to package directions)

Jar Thai Peanut Sauce

Spread the peanut sauce on the spinach wraps all the way to the edges. This will help to seal them when rolling. Layer along the center across the wrap, the chicken, the carrots, the cucumber, the cilantro and the rice. Fold over one side of the wrap over the layers and tuck it in. Making it as tight as you can without tearing the wrap. The idea is to form a sushi roll. Then roll over the other side of the wrap to form a burrito. The peanut sauce will help seal the roll together. Then cut into about 1 inch slices. The ends will most likely not hold together. I added the ends to a bowl and enjoyed them later when I was done. I made these the night before, placed them on the tray, covered and placed in the fridge.

Our kids candy sushi, recipe below. We for some reason forgot to take pics of our sushi, but made these exact ones. This picture courtesy of CatchMyParty.com. Visit the link for their fun under the sea birthday.

“Candy Sushi”

Fruit Roll Ups or Fruit By The Foot

Twinkies

Gummy Fish

These were so simple to make. Just slice the twinkies in about 1 inch slices. Wrap with the fruit rollup and add a gummy fish to the center. The kids absolutely loved these!

Another one we forget to get pics of were our dispenser of “Ocean Water” & “Brackish Water”. These are courtesy of Karaspartyideas.com. Visit the link for their fun “gone fishing” party.

I decided to go practical this year on the favors and gave out these super cute plastic mason jar cups that I found at Walmart.. We did blue and aqua. I added a sea turtle stamp to a kraft paper circle with a little curling ribbon and that was that. The kids got to take these home along with the “octopop and a sea turtle lollipop that I found at Michaels. The large plastic bin was filled with kinetic sand that I also found at Michaels. I don’t know who enjoyed that sand more, the parents or the kids.

This is the makings of our craft tables. We had two craft tables filled with lots of fun stuff for the kids to do. The tub of kinetic sand, sea turtle sun catchers, tie dye sea turtles, supplies to create shark tooth necklaces, tattoos, stamps, long strips of ocean themed coloring papers, and a ton of other ocean related goodies. Most of the crafts were found in the dollar section of the craft store. I hunted down all the sea turtle related crafts from all our local craft stores.

I thought it would be fun to have tattoos for the kids so came up with these for the girls and boys. I used the sticker paper that you can print at home, but not sure I would recommend it. The tattoos themselves printed nicely and looked just beautiful, but because the sticker paper is more like a film it was very hard to peel off the backing and even harder to place them on the kids. You had to do it in tiny sections and peel it back as you would very sticky wallpaper. I may give it one more shot if we ever choose to do them again or may look into other temporary tattoo paper.

Have to say this was the funnest party! Despite all the little things we forgot to do and all of the last minute improvs, the party was a huge success. I didn’t total out the cost of the decorations but it was very affordable and super easy to create. The staff at the Marine Life Center all were absolutely amazing! The kids had so much fun taking the tour through the facility, creating all of the crafts and learning all about different marine life.

Hoping you enjoyed all of the party pics and hoping it inspires you to create an ocean themed party. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions with anything.

Tammy – the party came out awesome. Can you tell me what you overall experience was with Loggerhead? I am considering booking my daughters birthday party there for January. She will be turning 3, but she is obsessed with Sea Turtles. Besides hanging items from the ceiling, where there any other restrictions. What activities did they provide? Etc….

Have to say this one of the best parties we’ve had in a really long time both for the kids and adults. The staff were absolutely amazing! They were accommodating, knowledgeable, and a lot of fun! I actually donated all of the decor you see in the pics, so ask them if they are still available for you to use at your daughters party if you are interested. There is no confetti or balloons, other than that there really wasn’t any other restrictions. They have different packages available. We ended up doing the full package which included a craft, tour and the educational show. My son loves sea turtles as well and said this was the best party he’s ever had. If you are all into ocean life and sea turtles, I highly recommend it! Let me know if you have any other questions, I’d be happy to try and answer them.

Hello there! So sorry I did not see your message until now. Thank you so much for all of your kind words! This party was the most fun to put together! Unfortunately I do not have anything left. I had donated everything that was still usable to the LoggerHead Marine Center.

I honestly have no idea where I put that file? So will try to explain what I did as best I can. I basically found a large sheet of cardboard from a cardboard recycling bin, drew out the shape I wanted, cut, painted as you see, then cut out the mouth area. I purchased a red plastic tablecloth either from the dollar store or party store and taped that to the back of the mouth. The shark itself is propped up by two triangle pieces of cardboard that sit on the floor behind the shark and on either side of the mouth. I most likely hot glued these in place and added additional tape for support. The tablecloth was a large rectangle sized one big enough that you could wrap it around whomever was behind the shark so you only would see the red from behind. I hope this helps. Most of the items I used were from our local dollar stores, just reinvented. It truly was worth the little bit of work it was in return for how much fun the kids and adults had with it. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Tammy